Thickfreakness came out just under a year after The Big Come Up, but the Black Keys already presented a slight but distinct modification of their sound. Even though it was recorded in similarly makeshift conditions — supposedly in one long session in Carney’s basement — it has a more muscular and gnarly sound than its predecessor. More so than their debut, this is the album that established the template of the original Black Keys sound thoroughly and specifically, with chunkier rhythms and the blues influences moved up a few decades, to a Zeppelin-sized overhaul. In short, the album sounds like its name. While the ubiquity of Black Keys licensing is something more easily associated with their increasing fame as their career went on, it actually all started back here with “Set You Free” in a Nissan commercial. The sounds were a lot different, but between that and the developments in their style since The Big Come Up, Thickfreakness in many ways feels like the beginning of the Black Keys as we came to know them, that sometimes-inexplicably lauded and popular rock band. Thickfreakness left some Keys classics in its wake, and depending on who you ask it might remain a definitive document from the band. But, like with the other early Keys releases, repetition and the passage of time have let its initial charm dwindle somewhat. In a weird way, Thickfreakness is a kind of background mood record, the sort of thing to throw on and not really pay attention as one riff and thumping drumbeat carry on into the next. It might be the moment where they began to distinguish their personality, but it’d take a bit longer for them to distinguish their songwriting beyond an ability to line up a series of reliably blistering blues-rock riffs.